1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an inkjet recording apparatus performing recording by discharging ink from a record head to a record medium.
2. Description of the Related Art
A recording apparatus is used as a recording apparatus having the function of a printer, a copier, a facsimile machine or the like, an output equipment of a multifunction device including a computer, a word processor or the like, or an output equipment of a work station. This recording apparatus is adapted to record an image on a record medium such as paper or a plastic sheet based on image information. The recording apparatus can be classified to an inkjet type one, a wire dot type one, a thermal-transfer type one, a thermal type one and a laser beam type one based on the record system thereof. Moreover, the recording apparatus can be classified to a serial type one and a line type one based on the scanning system thereof. The serial type recoding apparatus records an image by combining the main scanning moving a record head along a record medium and the sub-scanning performing the paper-feeding of a record medium. The line type recording apparatus records an image only by the sub-scanning in the conveyance direction, with recording data by one line in a lump using a record head extending in the width direction of the record medium.
The inkjet type recording apparatus (inkjet recording apparatus) drives a plurality of minute discharge ports formed in a record head based on image information, to selectively discharge ink from each discharge port and record an image. Consequently, as time elapses, ink in the discharge ports may dry to thicken and cohere, and a defective discharge may be caused. Moreover, the degradation of recording quality may be caused by the defective discharge caused by the mixing of paper powder, bubbles and the like into the ink in the discharge ports. In order to eject and remove such cohered ink, bubbles and the like, which are the causes of such a defective discharge, together with ink, sucking recovery processing is performed. The sucking recovery processing is the processing for forcibly ejecting ink by applying negative pressure sucking force caused by a pump to the ink at each discharge port every elapse of a predetermined period of time. Moreover, recovery processing by the preliminary discharge of performing an ink discharge from the discharge ports at the time other than that of recording is also performed from the discharge ports.
The waste ink ejected by the recovery processing is led to a waste ink collecting unit such as a waste ink tank through an ink tube. Then, the led waste ink is held by an absorption member including a filled ink absorbent material loaded in the inside of the waste ink collecting unit. The collecting mechanism of waste ink in such an inkjet recording apparatus is disclosed in, for example, Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. H04-135865.
It is necessary for an inkjet recording apparatus to have the sufficiently large capacity of the absorption member in order to thoroughly collect the waste ink ejected in the recovery processing to hold the recovered waste ink. However, the simple enlargement of the capacity needs to secure the space for the sake of it, and results in the enlargement in size of the apparatus main body. On the other hand, in order to miniaturize the apparatus main body, it can be considered to make the capacity of the absorption member small and to exchange the absorption member when the waste ink quantity in the absorption member approaches the saturation thereof. However, because the absorption member is normally disposed at the lowermost part of the apparatus main body and various parts are provided around the absorption member, the disassembling operation of the recording apparatus becomes necessary for exchanging the absorption member, and the operation is troublesome and takes a lot of time. Furthermore, if a pigment ink is used as the recording ink, the pigment ink absorbed by the absorption member starts to cohere early because the pigment ink easily coheres as compared with a dye ink. Consequently, the pigment ink has the disadvantage that the ink becomes difficult to absorb in the surface layer nearby a pigment ink absorption part of the absorption member.